The sky above the Calm Belt shimmered like glass, caught in the stillness that came before a typhoon. The air was thick—not with heat, nor wind, but something weightless and heavy all at once. Like the breath of the world had paused, holding itself back, watching.
Allen stood barefoot on the cracked stone of the cliff again, dressed in a pale tunic, hair tousled by the sea breeze. His silver-blue eyes were locked on the fissure in the earth below him—where the ground had split months ago, as if something ancient beneath it had exhaled for the first time in centuries.
The voice was louder today.
Not a sound. Not exactly.
But a pulse. A hum. A vibration that ran through his bones like a forgotten lullaby, sung in a tongue his body never learned, but his soul remembered.
It had been calling for weeks.
He didn't know what it wanted. Only that it wanted him.
Behind him, the world was quiet. No birds. No rustle of trees. Even the ocean, which usually whispered around the edges of the island, had gone flat.
Only one other soul stood behind him now.
Hades D. Walker.
He was a stone among silence—arms folded, long coat unmoving despite the breeze. He had watched his son return to this place again and again, like a tide drawn to one fixed rock.
But this time felt different.
He could feel it in the air.
Allen stepped closer to the cracked ground.
His small hand reached forward. The stone beneath his fingers was warm.
His pupils dilated. That song—that hum—was growing. It wasn't sound. It was invitation. A call so ancient it bypassed words entirely.
And then something… responded.
A light. Faint at first. Deep within the earth, beneath the stone.
A soft, rhythmic pulse like a heartbeat. Golden. Then red. Then gold again.
Allen's tiny hand trembled.
A whisper echoed in his head—not in words, but in feeling.
You are mine.
He didn't recoil. He didn't cry. Instead, he stepped closer to the crack.
Suddenly, a thin line of golden energy rose from the fissure—an ethereal ribbon of light that coiled like smoke, then wrapped around his wrist gently.
He blinked.
The moment he did, the world changed.
—
It wasn't the island anymore.
He was standing in darkness, surrounded by wings. Twelve of them—vast and sharp and burning with golden fire. Some were pure. Others blackened at the edges like scorched parchment. In the center, a single fruit floated—shimmering, glowing with every color of dawn and dusk.
It pulsed with power.
But also hunger.
Behind him, he heard a familiar voice—his own. Older. From the past life.
"No one ever wanted me. Not really."
Another voice, this one female—tender, broken.
"If you disappear, would anyone even notice?"
A third. Male. Cruel. Distant.
"You were never enough. Just a mistake we regretted keeping."
Allen's face contorted in pain.
The wings flared.
And then—
The fruit split in half before him, showing two cores: one glowing gold like a divine sun, the other black and purple, writhing like a galaxy of sorrow.
A voice, ancient and vast, whispered:
Choose.
But Allen didn't reach for either.
He simply whispered:
"...I didn't ask for this."
The light surged.
—
He snapped back into his body.
The wind returned.
The birds screamed in the trees.
The sea rose.
Serena appeared beside Hades instantly, Haki already pulsing from her like a radiant wall. Her eyes locked on Allen—and then widened in awe.
The crack had deepened. The earth around Allen's feet had begun to splinter outward in a perfect circle.
Hades took one step forward, speaking low. "It's begun."
Allen was breathing hard. Sweat clung to his brow.
But he didn't fall.
In fact, he smiled.
Tiny. Tired. But real.
Serena rushed to him, kneeling down, scooping him up into her arms.
She expected him to be burning. He wasn't.
She expected him to be crying. He wasn't.
He looked up at her with glowing eyes.
"Mama… there's someone waiting for me down there."
Her breath caught.
Hades stepped to the edge and looked into the crack.
The Devil Fruit was no longer dormant.
It was rising.
Slowly, like a moon emerging from beneath the sea.
Golden feathers drifted up from the fissure, each one pulsing with light. Some turned black mid-air and vanished like ash.
Serena held Allen tighter.
"We need to seal it again. He's too young."
"We can't," Hades murmured. "It's not us that's choosing. It's it."
The glow faded as Allen slipped into unconsciousness in her arms.
But just before his eyes closed, he whispered something neither of them fully understood:
"I remember this place… but not from this life."
Then he slept.
And the world, for now, returned to stillness.
But the earth knew.
Something had been awakened.
Not just a fruit.
A story.
A will.
And the next time Allen returned to that cliff… he wouldn't come back empty-handed.